Company Town

Icebox.com Comes Alive With Help From Ex-Execs

Five former founders and executives at Icebox.com, a bankrupt online entertainment company, are bringing it back out of the deep freeze.

The group, which includes TV veterans John Collier, Howard Gordon and Rob LaZebnik, bought the rights to most of the company's animated shows, including "Zombie College" and "Starship Regulars." Instead of hosting the shows on its own Web site, as Icebox.com did, the company plans to syndicate them through partners online, including San Francisco-based Mondo Media.

Billed as an online proving ground for potential TV and film projects, Icebox.com ran out of money and shut down in early February. The new Icebox has the same mission, but takes a bare-bones, pay-as-you-go approach, said Tal Vigderson, managing director for the new company.

Before giving the green light to any new shows, Vigderson said, Icebox plans to line up partners to cover the production costs and do the distribution. "We are not going to produce anything that we don't have the funding for," he said.

Vigderson, the former head of business and creative affairs for Icebox.com, said the group bought the Icebox assets at a bankruptcy auction last week for an undisclosed amount. "All of us are putting in our own money to make this happen," he said.

The fifth member of the new team is Scott Rupp, former head of business development at the defunct company.